


Good Friday

by seeminglyincurablesentimentality (myinnerchildisbored)



Series: Rose Shelby vs. All the Bastards [20]
Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-10-06 04:15:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20500721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myinnerchildisbored/pseuds/seeminglyincurablesentimentality
Summary: Easter 1924 is one big fat disappointment.Set in S3, episode 5.





	Good Friday

**Author's Note:**

> This bit follows on quite directly from 'Curses'.

Rose burst into the dining room and found it abandoned. There wasn’t even a remnant of breakfast to be seen, it was just empty. This was the thing that troubled Rose most about living in a house filled with black-and-whites, that they kept removing all evidence of human life in the place. Looking at the dining room now, it might as well never have seen a single meal, that’s how clean it was.

The bubbles of excitement inside her started popping one by one, replaced by little pebbles of worry. She turned heel, walked out into the entry hall and listened. Nothing. Rose went up to the window and scanned the driveway for movement; there wasn’t any, but the place was fairly rammed with empty motors.

“Good morning, Miss Rosie.”

Rose jumped and spun around. Mary had to be a bloody ghost, or at the very least half-a-ghost, she just kept appearing out of nowhere. She didn’t make a sound when she walked, even if she was wearing the shoes with the little heels, even when there wasn’t any carpet.

“Good morning – who’s here?” Rose asked, nodding towards the cars outside.

“The Misters Shelby,” Mary said gravely. “And some other gentlemen.”

It was tempting to point out that no one travelling in the company of the ‘misters’ could possibly be classified as a gentlemen, but Mary insisted on proper address at all times. It was nearly as irritating as her soundlessness.

“Why are they bein’ so quiet?” Rose asked suspiciously.

Mary’s mouth did something that made it look less like she’d been sucking on lemons, but you couldn’t quite have called it a smile.

“They’re out, Miss Rosie,” she said. “They’ve gone hunting.”

“What?” Rose’s eyebrows shot all the way up, as high as they could go. “Hunting what? Why? When are they back?”

“They didn’t say,” Mary said.

“But it’s Good Friday,” Rose exclaimed in complete frustration.

Mary cocked her head ever so slightly.

“I’ll have one of the lads drive you to church, if you like, Miss Rosie,” she said slowly.

Rose groaned.

“No, thank you, Mary.” She thought for a moment. “Did he say anything about dinner?”

“He didn’t.”

“Anything about any food at all?” Rose asked a little desperately now.

“No. Are you hungry, Miss Rosie?”

Rose closed her eyes for a moment, trying very hard not to cry.

“No, thank you, Mary,” she said. “I’ll just…I dunno…I’ll go for a walk.”

“Are you alright, Miss Rosie?”

“Grand,” Rose said darkly and dragged her feet towards the door. “Merry Good Friday to you, eh?”

She left a rather baffled Mary standing under the staring portrait of Grace and went to feed sugar cubes to the horses. Just because she was being cheated out of the best day of the year, didn’t mean the poor beasts couldn’t have their Good Friday breakfast.  


#

Religion was a matter of stops and starts with Rose’s aunt Polly. It lurched through her life like a car on its very last leg, mostly it did very little, but then sometimes it would roar back into action unexpectedly. And just like with a car, you never knew how long it might last.

Pol had been lighting quite a lot of candles in the weeks leading up to Easter, an unreasonable amount, really; which, in Rose and Finn’s experience, was never a good sign. She didn’t make them go to church very often, Polly, but when she did she took it awfully seriously. So, when she dragged them off the street for baths before the sun had even set (“It’s only Thursday,” Rose protested. “It’s Maundy Thursday, that’s different,” Pol announced. “What the fuck’s _maundy_?” Finn asked and got smacked for his trouble), there was no ignoring the writing on the wall.

Good Friday was going to be an absolute bastard of a day.

*

“Doing a runner, are you?”

Rose and Finn froze in their respective positions on the drainpipe, looking down at Tommy like a pair of sheepish Christmas decorations caught trying to escape the tree. Tommy took a slow drag on his cigarette, most of his face hidden by the peak of his cap, making it hard for them to judge his level of displeasure.

“Shhh,” Rose hissed down past Finn. “You’ll give us away.”

“Come on,” he said. “Come on down.”

They shimmied downwards rather slowly, both quietly assessing their chances of bolting once they were on solid ground. Outrunning Tommy was impossible, but he could only catch one of them if they went in separate directions. Rose wasn’t certain whether being second on the pipe was going to be an advantage or not; if Finn ran straight away, her father might give chase and she’d have a good chance of getting away, or he might just let Finn go and pluck her off the pipe like a pear. Fifty-fifty odds, really. Not ideal.

As it were, Tommy simply stood aside a bit to let them get down, ground his cigarette out under foot and shook his head a bit.

“What’d you do then?” he asked finally.

“Nothin’,” Rose said.

“Nothing.” He wasn’t convinced at all, she could tell.

“We haven’t,” she insisted.

“So, why’s it you’re coming out the bloody window with no shoes on?”

They had thought about sneaking downstairs to get their boots, but had decided against it. The risk of running across Polly in the process was simply too great. They’d socks with them, though, balled up in their pockets for when their feet got cold.

“Well?”

“Pol’s gone all holy again,” Finn said.

“Oh, she has, has she?”

“Yea,” Rose chimed in. “She’s bringing us to church today, she wants to. It’ll be agony.”

“_Agony_?” Her father pushed his cap back a little and gave her a frowny sort of smile. “What’s that when it’s at home?”

Rose sighed.

“Very, very, _very _bad pain,” she said. “For hours. It goes for hours.”

“And she’s not feedin’ us either. She said so herself,” Finn said. “She’s gone mad, Tommy.”

“And-“ Rose stopped abruptly when her father took a step towards the back door and opened it. “Ah, no…”

“In you go,” Tommy said. “Both of you, go on.”

Finn and Rose looked at him with genuine heartbreak in their eyes.

“Traitor,” Finn muttered as he trooped into the house.

Rose was shaking her head as she followed suit. Some father he was, making her walk to her doom.

They’d barely made it across the threshold, when Pol came marching into the kitchen from the front room, buttoned to the very top of her throat and pulling on a pair of gloves. Rose and Finn exchanged a miserable glance; and Rose noticed that Finn’s white shirt now had a broad greyish striped right down the front. She looked down at her own dress and found it covered in black and grey smears as well. It didn’t seem natural that one drainpipe could be this filthy; Rose figured it was probably due to all the blackness and smoke rising from the factories. They made her think of volcanoes, sometimes, the factories. No matter where the dirt had come from though, Finn’s Sunday best and her own were now coated in it and this hadn’t escaped their aunt.

“The state of-“ Pol’s eyes fell on the kitchen table and narrowed.

Rose and Finn, who’d been too busy avoiding looking anywhere other than their bare feet, dared to raise their heads and promptly proceeded to gape. On the table was a plate bearing a stack of hot cross buns nearly half as high as Rose herself, surrounded by bags and bags and bags of sweets – boiled ones and chewy – in enough colours to rival any sort of rainbow, never mind what was on offer at the corner shop. In amidst all the sugary excellence sat a smallish pile of rasher sandwiches. It was the most perfect spread Rose had ever seen.

“What’s this?” Pol asked Tommy.

“Breakfast,” he said.

“Is that for us?” Finn asked incredulous.

“No,” said Polly, just as Tommy said: “Yes.”

“It’s a fast day,” their aunt snapped.

“Not for these two, it’s not.”

They were having a stare-off now, Pol and Tommy, Rose couldn’t keep her eyes off them, she almost forgot about the things on the table. She’d grab something and whack him any second now, Rose was sure of it, a spoon or a frying pan or maybe a chair even. Her father didn’t look worried at all, he just looked back at her, his face perfectly still.

“Rosie,” he said without taking his eyes of Polly.

“Yea?”

“Sit down and have your breakfast. You as well, Finn.”

Finn didn’t move. Neither did Rose. Father or not, he’d only been back for a few months; Rose wasn’t at all sure that his authority trumped her aunt’s. Obeying him might still rile Pol up, like it did when Finn told Rose to do something and she obliged. (“But he said-“ “And if he told you to jump off a bloody bridge, you’d do that too?” These things never ended well…) That said, the smell of bacon was almost too much to take.

“Go on. God’s not going to smite you,” her father said drily.

“Yea, I know. She might but,” Rose said with a miniscule nod towards her aunt.

“She won’t.”

“She might,” Pol said.

“Worried about your soul, are you?” Tommy asked.

“I worry about all our souls.” Pol wasn’t giving an inch.

“We could just have a little bit maybe,” Finn suggested carefully.

“I didn’t make the rules, Finn.” Pol sounded a bit weary now. “It’s only a fast, not a bloody famine, so just-“

“Polly,” Tommy interrupted. “You can do as you please and that’s where it ends. No one else is goin’ hungry, not for anyone’s rules.”

“It’s a sacred-“

“There’s nothing sacred about hunger.”

He was winning, Rose couldn’t believe it. He had her, she could see Pol’s resolve melting like butter in the first spring warmth, slowly, but still. She looked up at her father with absolute awe. He’d found the magic words; it had to be magic, Pol never changed her mind for anyone but herself. 

“Save me a bit for later, eh?” she said, giving Finn and Rose a resigned smile.

“Don’t worry about later,” Rose’s father said. “Once the money’s counted tonight, we’re having ourselves a party.”

Pol threw her hands up in defeat.

“Might as well,” she said. “We’re already doomed.”

“That’s the spirit,” Tommy said. “I’ll see you at the shop once you’re done agonising.”

“Very bloody funny,” Pol growled as she disappeared towards the front room.

Rose and Finn were edging towards the table now, suddenly ravenous with possibility.

“Do your worst,” her father said with a wink.

“Are you not havin’ any?” Rose asked when he made to go.

“I’m saving up for tonight,” he said, already halfway out the door. “But you two, go for your life. Orright?”

He went and Rose and Finn fell upon their feast like seagulls. It was only two rasher sandwiches and three hot cross buns later that Rose realised that they’d never even make a dent in this, not even if they made themselves sick in the process.

*

Entering the shop was not really allowed, not unless there was a life or death emergency. That said, Rose had a feeling that today was an excellent day to bend the rules a little. Good Friday was a very busy day, it always was – maybe that was why Pol had gone all pious today, because it was the first time in years that there was someone else to mind the shop – and the secret door led straight into pandemonium.

Rose slipped through legs and past waterfalls of clinking coins until she reached the office door. Her father was in with her uncle Arthur, both of them bent over some type of paper, frowning in concentration.

“Ah, now, Rosie, you know-“ Tommy started.

“I know,” said quickly. “But I’ve to ask you somethin’.”

“What?”

“Can we take them out?”

“Take what out?”

“The sweets…” Rose felt stupid, the words weren’t coming out right, he was looking at her like she was thick.

“Why would you want to do that?” he asked.

“To give them away,” Rose said. “To the others.”

Her father had lost all interest in the work stuff on the table now.

“To your mates?” her asked.

“Yea, them as well,” Rose said with a shrug. “But anyone, really.”

“Why?” He sounded like he genuinely wanted to know.

Unfortunately, Rose hadn’t really thought about this very much at all, the idea had just kind of shown up on its own.

“ ‘cause we have tons and the other’s don’t have any,” she offered.

It was making her all itchy, the way he looked at her, though not in a bad way exactly. He was just looking and looking, the way he did at newly acquired horses.

“Is that orright?” Rose asked.

“Yea, it is,” her father said slowly.

“Thanks…” Rose gave him a tight little smile and backed away out of the door.

“Rosie?”

“Yea?”

“You fill their fuckin’ pockets,” Tommy said with the biggest grin she’d ever seen on him. “And when you run out, you come back here for more.”

Rose stopped dead and stared at him.

“There’s more?”

It was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard. He’d already stacked up enough sweet stuff in their kitchen to keep every child in Small Heath – possibly in all of Birmingham – happy for weeks.

“Yea, there’s a bit more.” Her father was still grinning, though it was maybe hurting him a little bit, his eyes were all wet. Lack of practice, Rose supposed. “Now, _nash_. I’ll see you later, eh?”

Rose had nearly closed the door, when she thought of something that made her poke her head back into the office.

“Merry Good Friday, da.”

“Merry Good Friday to you, my little love.”

It was funny how things could just turn around like that, Good Friday was now looking to be an absolute cracker.

#

Of course, Rose pondered as she hoisted herself into the car parked closest to the gate, things rarely every stayed turned around for good.

She couldn’t remember who had told her, but apparently you had to do things three times at least before you could call them a tradition. Since the first Good Friday with her father, they’d repeated the same rituals every year. From the outrageous breakfast to dispersing fistfuls of sweets to less fortunate children on their way to hours of agony on an empty stomach to gathering the family together for the dinner to end all dinners; Good Friday had been the best day of the year – Christmas could go and stuff itself in a stocking.

Admittedly, they hadn’t done it last year, because Tommy and Grace had been off canoodling and buying cars in America, but they’d done it all the other years and that had been three times, so there.

That said, if the same principle applied from reverse, they were halfway to neglecting their tradition into inexistence now. Unless, although Rose wasn’t holding her breath…or telling herself not to…unless, of course, her father came back in time from his _hunt_ – a fucking hunt of all the stupid things, he didn’t even like hunting – to at least salvage the evening’s entertainments.

Someone had dropped a packet of cigarettes on the floor on the car, between the pedals. Rose picked it up and shook it, it was very nearly full. She leaned back against the seat and started searching her pockets. Rose was fairly certain that somewhere down there, in between the residue of the sugar lumps she’d collected for the horses, the flat rocks for skipping and the nails for scratching along posh fuckers’ cars, a matchbook had to be hiding.

She looked over her shoulder to see if anyone was around; not that they’d do or even say anything to her, but they might grass her up and Rose wasn’t exactly clear whether smoking in visitors’ cars was frowned upon. It probably was, to some extent.

Not a soul.

It occurred to her that a fair few of the people working here probably had the day off, to go to town to drink and bet. Rose smiled. If they did it at her family’s shop, the betting, it’d be like they were handing her father back the wages he’d paid them. Daft. Completely.

There were a couple of cars parked behind her, at slightly awkward angles, as if they were coming skidding round a corner, chasing after her. Rose dug the longest nail from her pocket and aimed it at the car closest to her.

“You’ll not take me alive, you fuckers,” she muttered and opened fire.

Rose spun and grabbed the wheel, maneuvering ruthlessly down the main road, leaning as she swerved around pedestrians and horses and idiots on bicycles. They were right behind her and gaining.

“You drive,” Rose commanded the lad next to her.

She leaned out of the door, one hand on the frame and took careful aim at the copper driving, dodging the bullets from his partner as she did so.

“Steady,” she yelled at her driver.

Rose cocked her pistol and got the copper if not right between the eyes, at the very least in his shoulder. The cop car veered sideways and crashed into the window of the dress shop.

“Get yourself a nice new skirt,” Rose shouted.

She dropped back into the seat and shook a cigarette out of her packet.

“Floor it,” she said.

As they raced on, expanding their lead, Rose carefully struck a match and lit her cigarette. She knew better than to inhale straight away, Finn had deigned to explain the correct procedure quite a while back. There was a crunch of tires on gravel behind her.

“Christ, there’s a fuckin’ nest of them, is there?” Rose groaned.

Cigarette firmly wedged in the corner of her mouth, the smoke burning her left eye a little bit, and gun at the ready, she jumped back out for a counterattack, planting both feet squarely on the ground as she landed.

The car pulling up very nearly took her out. It came to a stop barely five feet in front of her.

The cigarette fell from Rose’s lips and onto her hand, she shook it off and dropped her nail in the process. By the time she was done, a woman was emerging from the car, eyeballing her something shocking. She looked, in fact, so furious that Rose instinctively started to walk backwards.

“Yes, run,” the woman snarled. “Run and tell them I am here.”

Rose was so stunned, she stopped.

“Who?”

“What?” The woman’s eyes narrowed, her eyebrows became lightning bolts.

“Who are you?” Rose asked. “And who wants to know you’re here?”

The woman took another step towards her and the face on her made the thought of running awfully appealing. It took all Rose had to hold her ground. This wasn’t a very tall woman, but she somehow didn’t need to be. She looked down at Rose and smiled; it was terrifying.

“Tell them the Grand Duchess,” she said. “If you are quick, I won’t have your master beat you for insolence.”

She wasn’t from around here, she sounded like she was getting ready to spit the way she pronounced her Hs.

“Do I look like a dog to you, missis?” Rose asked with as much bravado as she could muster.

The smile deepened and became no less terrifying.

“A little.”

“Be careful then, I might be the bitey kind.”

Rose had no idea where this had come from, but she was quite pleased truth be told. It was the kind of thing she could tell James and Alice about, they’d be delighted. The Grand Duchess, however, barely raised an eyebrow. That said, the menace in her eyes gave way to something like recognition.

“Is he in the house?” she asked. “Your father.”

“Dunno.”

“Is that so?”

Rose shrugged and sauntered off towards the stable as casually as she could, careful to walk slowly and keep from turning around. It wasn’t until she’d rounded the corner and was well out of sight, that it struck her that she should have left growling and barking; that’d have been spectacular. She’d tell James and Alice and them that she had, it would make the story better and it was very nearly true.

#

It was well into the afternoon when her father and uncles came riding through the gates. Rose, bored out of her mind now, had only just climbed the roof of the stable to keep a look out and by the time she’d scrambled back down the side, the men had disappeared into the house leaving the stable hands to take care of their mounts. It was the sort of thing they did now, getting off horses and walking away, having someone else to all the scraping and scrubbing and feeding.

She found her uncles in the sitting room, Finn and Arthur thawing their hands by the fire, John shouting into the phone. He looked sweaty, considering he’d all day out in the unfriendly chill.

“There’s Rosie now,” Arthur said, spreading one arm out like a crippled bird testing a wing.

Rose stepped closer and was pulled into his side, smelling woodfire, cigarettes and something metallic in his jacket.

“Orright, uncle Arthur?”

This type of physical greeting was highly irregular, it made the base of Rose’s throat tingle with worry. He grunted and tightened his hold on her. Rose craned her head awkwardly to get a look at him. Sometimes, mostly when he was very drunk or on the rare occasions when he was stone-cold sober, her uncle Arthur looked all of five years old. He never looked like a happy child though, he always turned into the kind that was standing alone at some corner waiting, resigned to the truth that it would be ages until anyone came for him, if they came at all.

“How was the hunt?” Rose asked.

“We got a stag,” Finn said, giving his hands a final rub before turning his back to the fire.

He stood so close it was touch-and-go whether his trousers would go up in flames.

“For Good Friday dinner?”

“Dinner’s cancelled,” her uncle John announced, slamming down the phone. “The ladies’ve gone mad.”

“What?” Rose stared from one uncle to the next in alarm. “But-“

“Tommy’s gonna love this,” John said with a manic grin and strode off in the general direction of the office.

Rose disentangled herself from Arthur’s hug, which was slowly turning into more of a choke hold, and turned to Finn.

“If you stay over we can just have a party on our own,” she said, very close to pleading.

“I’m goin’ back with Iz,” Finn said. “We’ve stuff on.”

“What stuff?” Rose asked. “How can you have _stuff _on? It’s Good Friday, you already have stuff on.”

“Well, it’s different stuff.” Finn, at least, had the grace to look a little bit apologetic.

Rose groaned and let herself fall into an armchair, glaring into the fire.

“Ah, Ro…”

“Piss off,” she snapped.

Finn huffed and found a chair of his own. Arthur simply stayed standing where Rose had left him, looking somewhere far away beyond the window. They brooded silently, the three of them, until John returned with Charlie in his arms.

“Special delivery for you, Arthur,” he boomed, loud enough to snap his brother out of whatever miserable reverie he’d disappeared in.

“Charlie-boy,” Arthur growled, accepting his frowning nephew with something very close to a smile.

“He’s staying at yours the night,” John told him. “Rosie as well.”

“I’m not-“ Rose started.

“Ah, now, don’t be rude, Rosie,” her uncle John interrupted. “You don’t want to upset Arthur, do you?”

“I-“ Rose let out a groan of frustration and pushed herself out of the chair.

She’d not taken three steps towards the office when John grabbed her by the collar of her coat and pulled her back.

“Gettoff,” she snapped.

“Sometimes a man needs a break, Rosie,” her uncle said with a smirk. “He’ll be in a cracking mood tomorrow, I guarantee, but we’ll leave him to it til then.”

“Why…” The rest of the question drifted away as the answer smacked Rose right in her stupid face. “Because of the posh bird?”

“Come on,” her uncle was already steering her towards the hall, after Arthur and Charlie.

“But she’s horrible,” Rose protested. “She was a right cow earlier when-“

“Tell you what,” John cut her off. “We put a nail in her tire, eh? I won’t grass if you don’t.”

Rose frowned up at him, still disgruntled but rather tempted.

“Yea?” “Let’s go find one,” her uncle smiled.

Rose pulled the longest nail she had from her pocket.

“Miles ahead of you,” she said.

#

She was an odd one, Rose’s new auntie Linda, an odd one to say the very least. She came down the garden path to meet them, smiling like Rose and Charlie were the most wonderful surprise she’d ever seen. Not the least bit put out by having two extra people to feed.

“Look what I picked up along the way,” Arthur said. “Free to a good home, it said so on the box.”

They were the first words he’d spoken since they’d gotten in the car; he’d been silent and far away all the way here.

“Oh, Arthur…” Linda smacked him on the arm and kissed his cheek.

For a man who was liable to rip another man clean in half when the mood took him, Arthur looked absurdly shy next to his wife.

“How are you, Rosie?” Linda asked brightly.

“Orright,” Rose muttered.

Linda held out her arms and Arthur passed her Charlie, all smiles after he’d slept most of the drive.

“Hello, sweet boy,” Linda cooed. “You’ll come help me put the chickens to bed, won’t you? Oh yes, you will…”

She wandered off, Charlie already spell-bound by her love, light and chatter, leaving Rose and Arthur awkwardly lingering by the car.

“Come on then.”

Arthur started up towards the house. It was just a regular house, the place he’d moved into after getting married, not ridiculous and huge like her father’s. It had a chicken coup out the back and some garden beds with carrots and things, beans tied to poles. There were neighbours, Rose could see a fair few houses around, but it was very quiet and still. The only sound was Linda’s voice drifting over from the other side of the chicken house, telling Charlie the names of all the chickens.

Once they were all in, in amongst the vases with wildflowers and the lacey little table things, Linda made a pot of tea and started softly clinking around the kitchen – she was incapable of doing things forcefully, it seemed, even when she was handling heavy pans.

Rose sat on the windowsill looking out at the darkening suburbs. Charlie was stacking metal egg cups on top of each other by the fire, sat between Arthur’s feet. It was peaceful, Rose supposed, it was the sort of thing that other families had all the time. Quiet evenings in. With potatoes and beans from out the back. Linda might even coax Rose into helping her wash up. Rose was having the most normal evening she’d had in years; thanks to the fact that her father somehow needed the whole of the big house empty to ride a grand duchess.

Maybe he was starting a new tradition, spending Good Friday in the company of beautiful and dangerous women.

#

Rose woke up, parched and disoriented. Something moved next to her in bed and she jumped, but it was only Charlie, rolling over in his sleep. The door was ajar and Linda had left a light on in the hallway – _just in case_, she’d told Rose before she’d kissed her on the head and left her to go to sleep.

It had seemed thick at the time, Rose couldn’t think of very many things that could be helped by open doors and lit lamps; but now, as she groggily tiptoed towards the stairs in search of water, she had to hand it to Linda, her foresight was remarkable. Then again, perhaps night time wandering wasn’t unusual in the quiet house, because in the kitchen, elbows on the table and head in hands, sat Arthur.

Rose leaned against the doorframe and watched him for a moment. He had an empty water glass in front of him, staring at it.

“Uncle Arthur?”

He didn’t startle, he just very slowly turned his head.

“Yea, Rosie?”

“Are you sad?”

His eyebrows knotted together she could barely see his eyes anymore.

“No, no…” He cleared his throat. “I’m orright.”

Rose just kept looking at him, trying to keep her face perfectly still. Sometimes people would keep talking and say things they were trying to keep inside, if you just looked at them long enough. Her father did it to her all the time.

“D’you remember your Grandad, Rosie?”

“With the chopped-up face?” Rose asked without thinking.

“That’s the one,” her uncle said darkly.

“Sorry…just…”

“No, fair enough,” Arthur said. “It’s chopped up, orright, you’re not wrong. Anyway, he’s gone.”

“He went ages ago,” Rose pointed out.

“No, Rosie, dead and gone.”

“Oh.” Rose came into the kitchen properly and stood close enough to put her hand on her uncle’s shoulder.

“It’s orright,” he croaked; but one of his hands wandered up and came to rest on her own.

“Are we havin’ a funeral?” Rose asked.

“No, nothin’.” Arthur cleared his throat again.

“Nothin’ at all?”

“We had a bit of a wake today, with the stag and all of us…well, not all, not Ada, but all the boys.”

“Was it good?”

“Good enough.” Arthur’s voice was cracking a bit and he looked so infinitely sad, Rose leaned a little closer, putting her head on his shoulder.

“He wasn’t nice, was he?” she whispered after a while.

“Not always,” her uncle said. “But nobody is, are they.”

“My da said that he was a bastard drunk.”

“True.”

“And that he’d rob his own.”

“That, too.”

“That youse were better off without him.”

“Yea,” Arthur said hoarsely. “Still but… you know.”

Rose sighed.

“Yea, I know.”

“Fathers, eh, Rosie?”

They stayed like this for a long while, leaning against each other in the half-lit kitchen, surrounded by their absent fathers.

#

“What’s the matter with you then?”

Rose stared ahead at the road, even though she could feel her father’s eyes on the side of her face. She’d not said a word to him since he’d shown up to collect them from Arthur’s; he’d not even gotten a hello. He’d had his hands too full of Charlie to notice then, but it was starting to annoy him now, she could tell.

“Rose.”

When you really stared at it, the road went all soft and drinkable looking, like the car was sucking it in as it went along.

“Suit yourself,” Tommy said.

She just caught his shrug out of the corner of her eye. They drove on in silence, until the big house loomed in front of them.

#

Rose was lying on her bed, feeling utterly dejected. Charlie had stopped squalling in the room down the corridor and the house was getting quiet and heavy around her. A small knock on her door cracked the shell of silence her room had become. Her father came in before she’d made up her mind whether or not to allow it.

It was late enough for him to have done away with most parts of his suit, he was down to his shirt and trousers; Rose hadn’t seen him out of full attire in so long he looked strangely unfamiliar.

“Still sulking?” he asked.

“What’s it to you?” Rose grumbled.

“I take that as a yes.” Tommy closed the door behind him. “Will you hear me out though?”

She nodded and he came over to sit on her bed.

“The world doesn’t revolve around what you want,” he said. “It’d be very nice if it did, but it doesn’t. Things come up and need to be dealt with when they do, d’you understand? Yesterday, some things came up.”

He wasn’t going to apologise. Rose hadn’t thought he would, not really, not til he’d sat down. There had been a jolt of hope then, but that had been silly really. Because apologies weakened you, they were like bricks out of a house til it all came tumbling down around you; he’d told her so himself, many times.

“Have you dealt with them?” she asked after a while. “The things?”

“I have,” her father said. “And I’ve also thought of a way to make it up to you. For yesterday.”

Rose propped herself up on her elbows, her interest peaked. Amends were not something her father made very often.

“D’you know what’s tomorrow, Rosie?”

“Yea,” she said, rolling her eyes. “It’s Easter Sunday, everybody knows that.”

“True enough,” he said. “But it’s Ederlezi as well. D’you know what that is?”

“Saint George’s Day,” Rose said. “Is it really? On the same day?”

“Doesn’t happen very often,” her father conceded, “but when it does, it’s an occasion for one hell of a party. The Lees have already made camp just outside Lynn and come tomorrow night there’ll be a fire big enough we’d probably be able to see it from here.”

Rose sat all the way up and cocked her head, unsure whether he was saying what she hoped he was saying.

“Johnny Dogs is coming to get you sometime in the morning,” Tommy dug into his pocket for his cigarettes. “Reckons the girls are very excited to see you.”

“What about Charlie?” Rose asked suspiciously.

“Ah, he’s too little. We’ll leave him with Frances and Mary, eh?”

“So you’re coming as well?”

“I will be.” Her father lit his cigarette and nodded slowly. “I’ve one more thing to take care off tomorrow, but it won’t take long. I’ll be there before they’ve even lit the fire, and then we’ll have ourselves a good old night. Orright?”

A grin was tugging at the corners of Rose’s mouth, impossible to keep at bay.

“Yea, orright,” she said.

Tommy reached over and ruffled her hair, a small sideways smile on his tired face. All of Rose’s anger evaporated. She let her grin grow huge and gave her father a wink as he got up and made for the door.

“Can we jump over the fire?” she asked.

“It’ll be too big.” Tommy opened the door and leaned against the frame. “I’ll tell you what though, I could probably throw you over it. Will that do?”

Rose nodded enthusiastically, already feeling the wind and the heat on her face.

“Merry Good Friday for yesterday, my little love.”

Her father gave her a wink of his own and closed the door. Rose wouldn’t see him again until five months later, when it was mid-September and her legs had grown long and tan from a summer spent on the road.   



End file.
